Tom Beckett: One of the things that most impresses me
about you as a poet is your willingness to engage in
collaborative writing projects. I think that the
possibilities of innovative poetic collaboration have
tended to be un- or under- explored by most contemporary
writers but represent in sum one of the great frontiers
before us. Would you speak to what collaborative
processes / exchanges mean to you?

Sheila E.
Murphy: Tom, I
appreciate your response to this aspect of my work. Your
use of the word "frontier" is an important one
in many respects. First, there is a quality of the
unknown that collaboration brings to the fore. As I write
with someone, I never know in advance where the work will
go. While this is true of my individual work, as well, I
suspect that is even more so in the collaborative realm.
Given my strong preference for the surprise end of the
spectrum that ranges from expectation to surprise, I find
the collaborative process energizing.

Collaboration also
provides a way of relating to a particular mind / spirit
/ heart. The process itself is focused around making
something together. Many good things come from the
arrangement, including but not limited to conversation,
discovery, friendship, illumination. One is part of a
dedicated and highly focused mechanism that finds and
shapes and processes.

I feel moved to
acknowledge, also, that collaboration includes a kind of
letting-go that may have wildly beautiful results.
Alternatively, the results may be less than stellar. The
important aspect, though, is probably learning that there
is greater capacity involved in collaboration than in
individual development or discovery of text, or
additional artistic elements. (In addition to text-based
collaboration, my collaborative ventures include
performance work with the Celtic harpist Megha
Morganfield and the visual art of Rupert Loydell.) When
one has more than ones mind / spirit / experience
to work with and work from, greater things can be
accomplished. The range of what is possible certainly
expands.

One of the benefits of
collaboration is the process of getting better at doing
it. Different people with whom Ive worked bring out
different ways of working, different possibilities. Some
individuals expand form, others draw out practices that
are a joy to become a part of. Some write long,
emotionally-charged passages. Some vibrate the humor
quotient in me, and inspire like resonance. One enjoys
this way of being with another person.

I generally try to respect
the collaborative work as very separate from my own, not
as a subset, certainly. It is something else entirely.
There is learning, there is even a kind of cherishing of
what is going on, what results, and the personal feelings
and intellectual learning that comes with the process.

One more element to
mention: I prefer spontaneity in the process over a more
deliberate way of working. I allow myself that, try to
sneak up on my subconscious by getting up early to
respond before Im fully awake and maybe restricting
the flow.

By the way, Tom, it may be
important, also, to consider collaboration outside of my
own efforts in this realm. One needs to learn how to read
it, and to transcend the immediate temptation many people
have acknowledged: "Who wrote which part?" That
is really not the point. The point of collaboration is
co-creation, not slicing off the parts and attributing
them.

TB: What contemporary poets do you
draw the most inspiration from? And how do you approach
the reading of a poem?

SEM: Ill answer the second part
of your question first. This may clarify any likely
rationale for my drawing inspiration from particular
writers. I approach a poem with complete trust in the
writers intention and process. In other words, the
writer has total credibility with me as I first
experience what that individual or collaborative entity
has done, is doing. I let myself engage in a process of
understanding. One way to describe this might be that I
look at and listen to what is there. I learn from that or
feel from it. Ideally, there is no a priori checklist
embedded in my head. At least I try to preclude such
positioning.

I enjoy finding out what a
writer is doing beautifully. In every writer, there is
likely a unique factor or factors that distinguish his /
her work from everyone elses. That is the part that
I most enjoy. Otherwise, reading would amount to being on
the prowl for de facto ditto marks, which would be
ludicrous.

That said, I have things
that tend especially to delight me, based upon past
experiences with reading writing. These include the
sparkle quotient of vocabulary, rhythm, and attunement to
sound, as well as the way that sound and concept fuse. I
enjoy, am delighted by, in fact, a crystalline congruence
of intellection and freshness. The selection of words
reveals a great deal about a writer. In addition to that,
the writers deftness in avoiding overuse of a given
word is critical. It would be easy to envision ones
oeuvre as being, among other things, a printout of the
words one had fallen in love with over the years.

A writers embedded
intention in the work presents a delicious opportunity to
learn from him or her when experiencing what is written.
What is most thrilling about this is that none of us
exactly knows this about our own work, or not literally
at least. When I read work, I enjoy learning what the
writer is selecting in the way of experiential carvings,
sometimes treating the syllables as objects within a
system. Here, the relationship of words and sounds to the
other words and sounds creates a vibrant and dynamic
field.

If I think of the work of
the late Gerald Burns, Im charmed by the level and
scope of his familiarity with numerous texts. His ability
to integrate these into his daily thought, as well as his
work, was sterling. I miss Gerald and his ability to
read. There really has been no one like him, and I defy
anyone to imitate that work, that quality of attention.

Among the established
innovators, Lyn Hejinian has consistently interested me
for her integration of precision and surprise in
language. From a personal standpoint, I have enjoyed
equally the attitudinal perspective that is evident when
she reads her work in public.

The work of Mary Rising
Higgins (recently oclock from Potes and Poets
Press) is brilliant, too, in its way of opening the
possibilities for writing on the page and in sound, and
in concept. I enjoy the work of Jeff Clark for the
clarity and concentration evident in what occurs within a
small space on the page. As I write this, I become
increasingly aware of the many writers whose work has
inspired me and continues to inspire. Peter Ganicks
No Soap Radio, in addition to numerous more recent
texts, displays a commitment to intensity and passion
brought to the practice of writing. The results are
beautiful and thrilling to the ear seeking out conceptual
stimulation.

Among my recent
collaborations, I find that I have learned a great deal
about the way certain writers create. Charles Alexander
listens beautifully and responds with a clarity and
generosity that is a joy to feel. David Baratier
possesses outstanding wit and surprise that generates
surprising elements in response. Lewis LaCook renews my
faith in a kind of Whitmanesque longlined, joyous, carpe
diem sort of writing that yields an elastic and
empowering sense of life. Ivan Arguelles is a master of
fluency, and I have gathered that there must always be
poetry flowing through his exquisite mind. John Bennett
and I have established a being that is beyond us both.
His mind is so flexible and so capable in innovation. It
is a terrific learning experience and a great release of
intensity to work with him.

I have gained much from
reading Bruce Andrews work, as I have from reading
Carla Harrymans. I read widely and all the time.
Recently, while facilitating a weeklong series of writing
workshops with Rupert Loydell (a fine poet and painter
with whom I am currently collaborating on a project) for
the Arvon Foundation in Devon, England, I rediscovered
the work of Sarah Law. A book by her will soon appear
from Bill Slaughters outstanding site Mudlark
(www.unf.edu / mudlark). Sarahs work is stimulating
and illuminating.

Tom, I am certain that I
have left out many writers whose work is important to me.
Suffice it to say that we are wealthy with brilliance in
innovative writing now. It is a lovely time to be alive.

TB: What, for you, constitutes the
"social spaces" of writing?

SEM: There has been an interesting
evolution associated with this term, based upon the
broadening of access and linkages to people and ideas
made possible by technology. Taking "social
spaces" to denote gathering sites or constructs, I
would say that this particular aspect of my writing life
has shaped itself in a way that continues to be
especially satisfying. The most enriching touchpoints for
me have typically occurred in letters. Epistolary
intimacy might be a term for this. I have established and
grown in relationships that were communion-based in this
way over the years. The Internet has facilitated
increased spontaneity in note making, correspondence, and
collaboration. I have always felt that communing in words
constitutes more than it appears. Letters seem to be like
training wheels for a more integral psychic joining with
other beings that the act of writing may but does not
necessarily distract from.

I know and love many
writers in Arizona. Geography is only one of many aspects
of joining, though. Perhaps communicating in writing,
rather than about writing is what has always possessed
the greatest intensity for me. Privacy is also a key
component of my artistic life. I love communing and I
love balancing that with my independence. I believe that
Arizona is the perfect locale for me. There is not a
recognizable scene here. Writers doing very different
things know one another. I dont feel responsible
for embodying regression to the mean. Instead, were
here in our normal categories, escaping ordinal and
interval classifications, while enjoying the differences.

I attend readings, will be
giving one tomorrow night at an art gallery in
Scottsdale, focusing on my most recent full-length book
from Potes and Poets Press, The Indelible Occasion.
This reading will be shared with another local poet, Eva
Jungermann. The group with whom well share the
reading will be composed of people representing a wide
variety of places and aspects. Some are writers, some are
good friends, some are both.

Whenever possible, I
participate in POG (poetry group) programs in Tucson, two
hours from here in Phoenix, where I have lived since
1976. That particular venue includes several like-minded
individuals relative to writing. We typically offer
programs that feature a writer and a visual artist. The
experiences are magnificent. Charles Alexander, Tenney
Nathanson, Dan Featherston, and a number of other writers
guide this group. Its wonderful.

To me, the online
apparatus and concept contributes to the lively exchange
and development of ideas and discoveries in writing. I
actively write to a number of people. Recent
correspondence includes new collaborations as well, with
Sarah Rosenthal and Tom Taylor. Scott Thurston, whom I
met at the Arvon Foundation in England, also adds welcome
happiness to the online correspondence picture.

For 12 years, Bev Carver
and I coordinated the Scottsdale Center for the Arts
Poetry Series, working with Carolyn Robbins, now the
Curator of Education for the new Scottsdale Museum of
Contemporary Art (an outgrowth of the same organization).
Bev and I founded that Series, and continue to have great
fondness for the experience. The Series afforded us the
opportunity to bring several international writers such
as Tom Raworth, Doug Barbour and Stephen Scobie, and
others, to our stage. We also featured local, regional,
and national writers. One of the most exciting aspects of
our work there included a format involving our
commissioning writers to create original works in
response to visual art that was included in traveling
exhibitions. On a given evening, anywhere from 5 to 12
writers would perform their pieces before the visual
creations. The audience would move through the gallery
with the series of writers, introduced in conjunction
with the artist and the visual work. This presented
another form of social occasion that widened the reach of
the art being experienced.

The aforementioned
workshop week at Arvon constituted another type of
intensive community experience that I will continue to
carry with me. In fact, I have a picture of the place on
a postcard propped up in my office. Similarly, the
Brisbane Writers Festival, where I performed last
October, was a great gift, allowing me to get to know
writers in Australia, as well as individuals who hailed
from other countries, as well. The social construct was
amazingly beautiful, and wonderfully organized, I might
add!

TB: What does poetry do? What
is its social utility?

SEM: At its best, poetry synthesizes,
focuses, and shapes perception in a manner to create a
new and unique entity. I suppose that answers a different
question, "What can poetry do?" What poetry
does is to release a channel of discovery and recognize
the substance of a sphere of perception that has greater
energy, a higher charge, and facilitates miracles ranging
from small to large.

Some things that poetry
has done include the creation of a socially recognized,
if not always sanctioned, creation that facilitates a
symbolic or emblematic sharing around a particular event
or reality. If one considers what Allen Ginsbergs Howl
accomplished and continues to accomplish, it is clear
that the locating function of poetry stands out. What
intrigues me about this is that poetry acts to clarify
what seems a hypothetical proposition. People at varying
layers of awareness buy-in, and the vibrational sequence
spirals upward, creating an increasing investment in a
belief that what is proposed is true.

Looking at an entirely
different kind of poetic sequence, The Canterbury
Tales offers another type of sharing, one supposedly
linked heavily with the narrative function. What occurs
is that the sharing begins to gather momentum around the
characterization that is being revealed, hypothesized,
agreed upon, and escalating to increasingly greater
heights of awareness. We agree upon certain things
concerning the Wife of Bath. We find out what has
happened, and then we infer things about her. We add to
the store of what we know, as though we were citizens all
living in a small town, learning about people to help
ourselves survive.

Work of a quieter nature,
such as My Life by Lyn Hejinian, allows for a
different sharing. The communion exists on a more
one-to-one level between what is given on the page and
the individual experiencing it. A reader finds a self in
the constructs that are given. Those constructs remain
open enough not only to include the reader, but to
transform with different or repeated readings.

Id like to turn to a
different aspect of what poetry does, specifically, the
processing function. Poetry is a word that has fostered a
containment of what I would consider an otherwise
nameless (ironically) function of processing that many
individuals in our culture possess. I would say, for
example, that poetry defines me, in one sense, on the
basis of how I think, how I process input, what
preoccupies me. For example, I am presently reading books
of statutes and administrative code as part of an
organizational analysis that my consulting firm is
performing. Last night I came upon the word contiguous,
along with a legal definition of that word within the
context given. I immediately chased down a notebook to
allow several possibly poetic lines to flow forward, as
the word contiguous began to entertain me with its many
resonances. In like fashion, when I listen to financial
radio (investing is my hobby), I allow the words used
there to change. I know Im one of many people in
the poetry realm who enjoy this pursuit. In that same
spirit, when Im in a lecture hall, I simultaneously
gather information on several levels, one of which is
what the words used free me to discover on a level that
differs dramatically from the literal one that pays for
my time to be present.

It would be easy to answer
your question by saying that poetry is absolutely a
luxury item that possesses no practical utility. Equally,
I could answer that poetry is beyond the reach of the
most pressing concerns that this greed-driven culture has
made itself about. But that would be too simple, and, in
fact, inaccurate. Poetry occurs within a
multi-dimensional spectrum that is equally capable of
being ignored, of making one individual tingle with
excitement, of inspiring thousands of people, of
elevating consciousness, or of simply entertaining. There
are good poems, splendiferous poems, plain poems, weak
poems, and there are poets finding all of the above in
their computers and their notebooks and their eardrums.
Amusingly enough, the word refuses to leave us, in the
best and worst of times. TV sitcoms will employ the words
"pure poetry." Theyll euphemize (sorry,
Edwin Newman) a persons ability by calling her a
poet.

TB: I think of poetry as "wild
epistemology" (as a bundle of ways of asking
fundamental questions about what and how one knows)
exploring perception through form. You know?

SEM: Even more than ontology and
axiology, epistemology seems to invite the wild. The
categorical hue of its six-syllabled feast might mute the
scintillating reality of this adventurous entity. I
experience poetry as a kind of press pass (versus
trespass) that allows me to luxuriate in anything toward
which my mind, heart, breathing apparatus, gravitates.
Every part of the writing process is epistemological in
character. It opens, tests, examines, plays, lubricates
the mechanical parts that process things, facts,
feelings, while gathering observations, inducing
perception, and spinning something that emerges,
presumably as a result.

I infer from the phrase
"wild epistemology" a celebratory aspect to the
act of knowing, an active and fully charged experience
and discovery of sensory information, a juxtaposition of
person and event, a co-sensing of various events with
other sensate beings. Poetry is a way of perceiving, and
it is also a means of taking in and changing and being
changed by what occurs within the pond of probability.
Some little droplet seems arbitrarily to become the
ingredient extracted from all possible truth and being.
For the moment, a determination is made miraculously or
at least mysteriously for that to be / seem real. One
goes with it.

Despite my being a very
focused individual, I firmly believe that I operate on a
highly intuitive level and veritably float from one
occasion to another, fueled, perhaps, by an increasing
store of awareness that can only be derived from the wild
epistemology that poetry indeed is. I like your term, and
cannot help agreeing on this hypothesis you propose.

When you say "through
form," I recall a way that I have spoken about the
haibun, a form Ive used rather prolifically since
April, 1984. The haibun themselves have become containers
that are ready to include what I find that belongs in
them. Having that form exist a priori has allowed greater
freedom than I could have imagined, had I pressed myself
into the challenging of inventing a new outfit for each
one.

TB: How does the body enter into
writing for you?

SEM: In some instances, the body is
inseparable from writing. I mean this both in terms of
the act of tuning in to words, either via the medium of
keyboard or of pen strokes. Then there is the more
prominent question of subject matter: the substance of
what one writes. A Clove of Gender (Stride Press,
1995) is for me a very physical book, even a sensual one.
Pure Mental Breath (Gesture Press, 1994), on the
other hand, is meditative, seeming to touch experience in
the way flesh flicks onto a violin string and a spree of
resonance lifts off into the sense of hearing. Everything
is situated in the physical in some manner, even though I
consider my way of processing life quite cerebral.

The part of life that is
the body seems the simplest. It must be recognized,
though, that the body is also a reservoir for what has
occurred in the domain of the emotional and probably the
intellect as well. The therapeutic process Jin shin
operates on this principle: points of the body can be
pressed to align the pulse into a unified beat. Lining up
the pulses places the body in a state of greater health,
improving the immune system, as well. In any case,
writing is capable of situating what is deceptively
simple and helping one to focus there.

I have been fortunate in
that I have a very positive sense of what is physical. I
have been blessed with having been treated respectfully
throughout my life. This is a gift that makes many things
possible. One notable way that this is true is that the
body can be a relatively pure receiver of information and
experience. To say that anyone is without pain would be
untrue. I certainly am not. The key thing is that the
body is a home that captures years of experience and
sensation. As one reads it, a text changes, just as any
item underneath a microscope...

Curiously enough, my
current reading of Lawrence Lessigs book Code
and Other Laws of Cyberspace fits this question. We
live on the cusp of cyberspace and physical geography,
with all its laws and architecture even intuitively
factored into the arrangements that govern or at least
organize our lives. For some years now, we have already
coexisted in a realm that is principally uncharted in any
parallel manner. As I read this book, I become
increasingly and even palpably aware of how it is
possible to choose to a greater degree to be in and of
that new world, where one can define oneself in specific
and maybe better ways, where it is possible to know
people, learn things, even thrive differently.

The physical is a
manifestation of something much more ironically real than
what it would seem. How we address the symptoms of
physicality, how we acquiesce to what purportedly exists,
how we translate what we name in it, all become
increasingly vivid issues in experience.

When it comes to physical
poetry, poetry that engages principally via the body and
its sensory capacities, I tend to prefer the subtle to
the graphic and the obvious. It seems that the more a
writer accepts true experience, the more s / he allows
for and accepts that ever-shifting balance.

TB: To what degree does autobiography
consciously figure in your writing?

SEM: Autobiography is one of many
elements I have to work with. I neither consciously
disallow it, nor do I pursue autobiographical detail with
any favoritism.

What is most important to
me is what happens with the autobiographical material,
when it arrives. I believe that this characterizes a
critical difference between at least two writing styles.
Some writers appear to take the raw material and deliver
it, relatively untreated, to the page. This interests me
far less than some sort of interaction taking place with
the material. For instance, I find great spark in the
fusion of the juxtaposition of highly technical material
and lyrical passages. Among other things, this offers
richness of leveling and heuristic value.

It occurs to me that the
definition of autobiographical material poses a
challenge. Typically, one thinks of autobiography as the
narration of something that happened in a persons
own life. I suppose that I consider items one perceives,
items one is reading, and details from current events to
be at least branches of autobiography.

Turning to the literal
question you have asked, I believe that I am very much
aware of when autobiography has entered the forefront of
the poem I am discovering. I try to see what this
material suggests, but often the material takes off
without me, or ahead of me, and engages in that life of
its own that I believe it has.

TB: I see your work as being driven by
its lyricism, its musicality. I want to talk about this
but dont want the discussion to get too fuzzy. As
you noted in your previous answer, the material tends to
take off without you. Is this, at least in part, a
function of sonic textures? If not, what do you think is
going on?

SEM: Music has been the gate or filter
through which much of my experience has passed. My
perception has been guided by sound, perhaps as a result
of formal training in music, and equally, given my
predilection for the auditory sense.

You have used the words
"driven by" with "lyricism". I have
never thought of lyricisms driving anything, but it
may be possible. In fact, the more I think about this
idea, the more I enjoy the observation that the quality
of music or of singing acts as an impetus to engage the
mind and the other senses. More than that, one perceives
into the process of hearing, I think, perhaps placing
thought in the context of sound, regardless of its
initial form.

It may be important to
observe here that the level of musicality or lyricism in
work can be distracting. This reminds me of the long
period in my life when I performed on the flute. My
playing was full of life. People were drawn to it.
Something about that whole scenario posed an issue for me
at the time, although I doubt that I would let it bother
me now. The issue seemed to be one of feeling that
Id merely entertained or dazzled someone with
sound. I wanted to do other things, as well. The concerns
I felt paralleled the ongoing topic of entertainment
versus art. The former is just not enough, and in fact
can be antithetical to art.

So lyricism can be an
element to be dealt with. Its not a simple thing to
sound good and leave it at that. Nor would having a tin
ear be an advantage. Sacrificing capacity rarely is!
Ideally, intention and sound are integrated and both
capture and create a texture that leads to other levels,
new realizations.

If sound is treated in a
laissez-faire manner, the result may be a shapeless
entity. That said, I acknowledge the full possibility of
that intention. If sound is overly crafted, one may risk
contrivance. If sound is an integral part of the
direction textual art is being, leading to an
epistemological somewhere, then good. Sonority has
momentum built into it, in most instances. Sonority
carries. We speak of carrying a tune.

So I do believe that sonic
textures do have their own being, one distinct from the
progenitive function that lays claim to having spawned
it. One cannot live apart from that. In considering sonic
textures that I like, the element I most admire about
them is their capacity to be more than they initially
seem. Taking as an example the work of John Taggart,
there seems a very striking, very pure quality in the
sound work that he does. There are several things
happening at different levels, many of them as elusive as
a mathematics problem. Of course sound poetry itself, as
in the work of Stephen Scobie and Douglas Barbour, stirs
in the hearer a faculty for experiencing differently from
textually.

TB: I think of the sound of my own
poetry in almost geological terms  a kind of
surface tension that maps as cracks and fissures. Your
work, on the other hand, seems more involved with
continuities  musical and otherwise. Is this a
distinction that is meaningful to you?

SEM: This is a useful distinction that
I believe holds. I will discuss continuities a little bit
and try to get beneath what may be at work here. I am
reminded right away of a few lines from the title poem of
Falling in Love Falling in Love With You Syntax:
"Once I went with sad geology / Who knew rocks not
impurely / Talked of rocks touched the soul / That rocks
may have / I drank a toast to new tall order / Meaning me
I drank a toast / Got sloshed with him / And dreamed of
you prolifically / Falling in love falling in love with
you syntax."

The surface connection
between these lines and what youve asked may be
revealing. How one experiences the tangibles, how one
configures those tangibles in writing, how writing
supercedes the types of tangible elements in ones
experience, all become issues. Notice the proposition of
seeking to lift the "other" away from the
tangibles. Notice the resistance to the givens. Witness
also the desire for peace, here represented by a liftoff.
Eventually, language is what can change experience.

Both the dense and the
sparse work that I create continually return to the
concept of almost seamlessly perceived joinings. The
issue of boundaries becomes important, because I believe
it is essential not to confuse the idea of smooth
movement across boundaries with no boundaries at all.

One ideal construct for me
would involve being situated in a place and having in
place multiple connections, powerful, magnetically
charged linkages, thoroughly at work going back and forth
and creating an increasingly intense level of communion.
If one insists on an autobiographical connection, one
might acknowledge that I began my life at three pounds
eight ounces lying in an incubator, with a 50 / 50 chance
of making it, with loved ones sending energy and light
from distances. Now I love hotels and peace and quiet and
loving and being loved from afar. I like the little
cells. I trust in the power of linkages even, or
especially, from distances, as those connections are
deeply founded and uninfected by the distraction of
appearances and mundane annoyances.

Returning to the sound.
Yes, my work appears legato. Not slurred, I think.
Staccato is infrequent, although sometimes appropriate. I
generally am looking for the breath to continue being
released into and circulated through the wind instrument
while tonguing the distinctions between quarter tone and
eighth note. That sort of thing. One isnt getting a
brittle stop. One is getting continuity, as it were. This
relates, inevitably, I think to the construct and
positioning from which one writes. All of this is
principally unconscious, with analytical incisions coming
a posteriori!

TB: "Eventually, language is what
can change experience." I absolutely agree. Please
speak to the relationship between language and change.

SEM: I feel moved to begin by adding
that language is itself experience, and functions as a
tangible entity for people who live inside it as I always
have. The power that language has in other experience is
profound, as well. Weve all heard anecdotal sprints
into the realm of magic reported about language.
Ill add another. A particular speaker I heard years
ago related a story about preparing for a presentation
that he was to deliver to a corporate group. He ventured
to the beach to prepare his remarks, and positioned
himself in maximum comfort to perform his task. The
sunlight seemed generous, the waves were pounding and
splashing open. Part of this individuals work
involved designing an exercise that involved words. He
began to leaf through the dictionary he had brought with
him to seek synonyms for something not favorable. Words
such as "disappointment," and the like were the
temporary focus of his attention. You know where I am
headed here. The magnetic impact of his engaging with
those words had a negative effect on his feelings,
despite the virtually Edenic situation in which he had
placed himself.

There are countless other
homespun examples. I have a friend who has performed a
sort of negative-ectomy on her language patterns. She
utters the word "cancel" when she inadvertently
slips into old habits of saying something
self-deprecating. The concept behind doing this is beyond
simple denial, I think. It is a matter of reframing how
one programs oneself. A line I cannot accurately
attribute comes to mind, "The best slave does not
need to be beaten. She beats herself." Feeding
oneself negative messages predictably delivers negative
results.

Looking more directly now
at the pursuit we are sharing, language can be seen as
the raw material writers have to employ. In this view,
language, open to alteration, is our row of notes. But
that passive construct is deceptive, because language is
also charged with its own vigor and surprise. Just when
we might imagine that the syllables are still, we are
thrown a lovely curve. Language lives in its way, elicits
a power that cannot be anticipated perfectly. And thank
goodness it cannot! Thats where the excitement
comes in.

I like to think about
points of divergence in different "schools" of
thought, mainly to envision possible points of
commonality that might reconcile differences (consistent
with my smoothing impulse). One place where there seem to
be very different ways of looking at language amounts to
a matter of control over versus moving with language. The
predictable descriptive / narrative verse that seems to
win the majority of prizes and be the easiest to consume
essentially plays upon a kind of cornball reverence that
is placed upon the writer. A recent television special on
poetry moved this way. Here, one plays up a pseudo sacred
role of the poet and in fact leans a little heavily for
my taste on pre-establishing a select set of elements as
special. This approach generally lacks openness, and is
just a bit too pat for my preferences. Here, language
might be alleged to change experience, but in fact it
only reinforces a narrow type of change that is de facto
sanctioned in advance.

Another point of
divergence that has been recognized is one associated
with closure. The more one celebrates an open view of
language as a change agent, the less one is eager to
frame a work in any tidy way. This may sound ironic from
someone who likes forms, but I mean here that any sort of
preliminary decision making, even an unconscious act of
same, is outside the spirit of what is most exciting in
the sphere of language. It is fun to hear a writer say
(and mean) that a work took him or her to a very
unexpected place. The work that results seems to possess
a greater sense of integration. One cannot adjust
something in poetry with a gauge. One can set some
boundaries and have a field day with what emerges, but
the concept is to foster allowance.

Language is capable of
facilitating change in the psyche. After reading some
poems, I am certain that I will never perceive experience
in the same way. Jack Gilberts poem "The
Abnormal Is Not Courage" did that to me. Some of the
most deceptively quiet Creeley poems like
"Song" have effected the same. It is important
to say immediately that not all of these changes are
emotional. Therein lies another point of divergence that
is raised by different thought systems. Not all change is
emotional or intellectual strictly. Real change
transcends both of those in ways I would never try to
contain. Whether a text breaks open experience or seams
it or finds a new language for it, change is probable
with something well conceived, discovered, and crafted.

TB: I find the dichotomy you set up
between "control over versus moving with
language" to be problematic. To me, control of
language is an illusion and moving with language is sort
of ideologically suspect in-so-far as it seems to imply
an uncritical acceptance of language as given. Can we
delve into this and your "smoothing" impulse a
little more?

SEM: Perhaps both ends of this
artificial spectrum need to be dismissed in an effort to
describe more accurately what may really be taking place.
For me, language is experienced as a state of being. It
has characteristics of place, characteristics of mood, a
set of symbols that both change and stay the same.
Language is less a filter or a vehicle than it is a way
of living. The word language can be deceiving, mainly
because it has prosaic elements that make it possible to
define the concept in a utilitarian way. In fact,
language is the ultimate fusion of anchor and flux. It
can be so precise and so malleable at one time. And I
recognize that these are not the polar ends of one
semantic differential construct.

Youre right. One
does not control language. Neither does one go limp
beside it and mindlessly allow. One stays at that line
that is neither and both. In some mysterious way,
language is a muscle unlike any other, as it does not
belong, is not possessed, in any sense of the word. As I
write / speak, I am listening to every word I say,
recognizing a sometimes not too thin irony about the
messages that are given off.

Here is another beginning.
Language allows everything to be possible in thought.
Thought is language. I think that wrestling too much with
language as a thing to move around or a force to press us
into service gets too mucky. The truth I feel is that
there is a sphere of learning that language brings forth.
Equally, that is a sphere of experiencing, of being
surprised, of being lulled into a condition that accepts
different flux and different truth.

That said, there is a
tangible quality to language that offers a rich store of
what seems like givens. When we hear, we gather. When we
read, we gather. Language functions as a commodity in our
culture, although not completely so. Language is also a
way of differentiating cultures through segregated
commonalities. It has porous and filmy qualities.

In textual art, there are
infinite ways of treating and experiencing language. This
ranges at the very least from silken to sharp staccato.
Just as statistical science tells us, there is a
phenomenon whereby preference is shown for certain kinds
of syllabic and word use. Creators hover there. But the
possibilities are really limitless.

TB: What senses of "limit" do
you bring to writing?

SEM: I rarely think of limits, at least
not in the literal sense of the word, but I like the idea
of boundaries, which ironically contribute fuel to my
work. I associate limits with deficiencies, even while
recognizing that this is really not the case literally.
The idea of boundaries feels more workable to me. Limits
feel externally imposed in some way, while boundaries
seem hinged to something Ive agreed upon. That
said, I often select a set of boundaries in the hope that
they will nourish what may emerge when I decide to write.

One of the most creative
aspects of writing involves the selection of boundaries.
This may be a highly conscious process, or something that
occurs apparently by accident. Whatever the case, the
design of a frame is a preliminary step that shapes what
the work might be able to become. The more I think of
this, the more probable it seems that this first act is
really the first part of writing. If I pretend that the
initial step is not earth-shatteringly important, or even
talk myself into thinking this is wholly (pun intended)
accidental, then I may further relax into what I consider
a perfect way to write. By that I mean that the
boundaries help shape something whose time has come to
emerge through me in my role as facilitator.

I recognize that some
writers address form very differently from the way I do.
Some people appear to let form follow content. I
dont disagree with this approach. Its just
that (for me) it tends to yield less, in both senses of
the word. I often select a form to fill, and enjoy seeing
how it is filled. Better yet, I appreciate how the
boundaries are challenged by an emergent work.

As you can see, Ive
taken the question about limits, turned to boundaries,
and have emphasized form. I think that your question also
invites another issue, that of other artistic genres.
Having been heavily identified as a musician during all
of my early life, I brought to writing some of the
capabilities that music gave me. That is probably as much
a result of my genetic musical inclination (manifest,
curiously enough, equally from the nonmusical but
sound-obsessed paternal side of the family as from the
distinctly musical maternal side) as of my musical
pursuits. Beginning early in 1999, I invited a visual
medium into my practice. Some new works combine text and
painting or text and drawing. Some works are purely
drawings or paintings. As I work in the visual medium, I
discover how much desire I have held for that world.

To your question, I
recognize some of the limits (there, Ive said it!)
of different media. For writing, this may be one
involving economy. We in writing are less capable of
economy, I think, than some visual artists are. So with
musicians. They accomplish differently, deleting text in
instrumental pieces. Despite these considerations, I
fundamentally trust language. Accordingly, I maintain a
skepticism, healthy or unhealthy, toward
non-language-based elements.

TB: What kinds of procedures do you
utilize when writing?

SEM: Ill begin by talking about
procedures I have used or am using now, recognizing that
this is likely to change over time. For me, procedures
may be integrally tied to the poems being, rather
than a bridge that carries me to it. By their very
nature, procedures delimit as they draw into the field of
the poem particular elements. They are deeper, then, than
mechanics of making. In fact, the core intention, itself,
is a kind of field. Thinking about procedures reinforces
that perception.

With vocabularys
being important to my work, Im often interested in
finding ways to generate a vital word choice. This may
involve something so simple as selecting one or more
sources and then drawing words from those sources, either
randomly or by in a pattern. The procedure might involve
placing myself physically where I can hear something I
dont normally hear and draw from it. I might
consciously decide to allow a text to do something I
havent done before. I might simply let my fingers
or hand go, keyboard or notebook, and work away until
Im finding a rhythm that reveals what the poem
wants to do and be.

I typically exist in an
alpha state wherein I float around, ironically performing
all sorts of beta tasks that I perform intuitively. This
allows for the mixing of elements, experience, style, and
so forth. I sometimes hear a kind of ticker tape running
in my head, and if I simply grab the nearest pencil, all
the text awaits me. There is so much of it I cannot hope
to catch it all. This mostly happens when Ive
achieved a certain level of vibration in the
aforementioned relaxed state.

Procedures have choice in
them. I sometimes suspect that what will be best for
writing is to get on the keyboard and create some pieces.
I listen to them occur to me. I look at them on the
screen. I think about their sound again. I move
syllables, I add punctuation.

Some other new pieces
began on small cold-pressed cards with beautifully torn
edges. I had been doing drawings on similar cards. Then,
I thought of writing words on them. These original
thought marks moved to the computer. For a few moments,
it was as though they had been made on the computer.
These started upstairs, when I was propped in bed.

I have used newly created
forms to measure new work, both as a way of creating
momentum and as a way of removing the bother of
co-inventing shape and content when writing pieces. Teth
does this, with each of 81 pages having 81 words of text.
The shapes are centered on the page, but differ in the
distribution and patterning of words. Tommy and Neil,
a book in two parts, dedicated to each brother on his 36th
birthday, is crafted based upon a particular format. Tommy
has on each of 36 pages three separate word groupings, of
54, 13 and 6 words each, commemorating his birth on 6 /
13 / 54. Letters to Neil is simply 36 prose poem
passages. Obeli: 21 Contemplations is simply 21
poems, 21 lines each, 7 words per line.

These, of course are
rule-based, rules that I created. Teth was
centered on the numerical meaning of nine, and teth is
the ninth letter of the Hebrew alphabet. The Tommy poems
clearly relate to their structure, as well.

Lets look at this a
bit more closely. Among the procedures I have used are
mathematical conceptual translations, music theory,
taking 12-tone patterns in verse, and philosophical
concepts as a launching place. I have worked a good deal
with visual art, responding to it, designing systems that
draw from its own sources. I have used homophonic
translation, sometimes in collaborative passages, as with
Charles Alexander in Prayer,Rupture, Dwelling,
our book-length poem.

I write by hand, I write
onscreen, I speak into a dictating recorder while driving
(only occasionally). I write during seminars or lectures
or even meetings, mixing in language of the occasion with
language I might otherwise like to include.

In general, I love the
writing process. It is more natural to me than anything
else, although I have a great fondness for other art
forms. I feel fortunate to have this process in my life,
that is, in fact, my life.

TB: Lets circle back to where we
began: collaborations. What is the importance to you of
procedures when working with another person? Maybe you
could take me through a blow-by-blow of one of your
creative exchanges in order to get a sense of what the
working process is like for you.

SEM: Procedures can be useful tools for
focusing a project. When working collaboratively, it is
often valuable to agree upon a way of being open to
discoveries, or even of reaching for them. I must add
that procedures may be prominent, fixed, relaxed, or
almost nonexistent except insofar as to say that some
kind of volley is going on. Every collaborative project
is unique in its teaching, its pleasure, its excitement,
its discovery. Ive had the privilege of working
with different poets who either were friends to begin
with or who became friends during the process of
collaborating. Its a joy to engage this way, as I
believe the process brings out elements of each person
that might have been in a suspend mode without the
practice.

Charles Alexander and I
created a book-length (roughly 100-page) poem called Prayer,
Rupture, Dwelling. I select this piece to talk about
because we did set some procedures, and we moved along at
a very pleasurable pace, over a period that exceeded a
year, I believe. The poem was created online, back and
forth from our email addresses, spanning Tucson (where
Charles lives) and Phoenix (my home). We began with a
small kernel of lined work, and made the decision to
pattern our collaboration as a pair of offerings from
each person: a lined section, followed by a prose
section. Therefore, one would receive a prose section and
a lined section and response with a prose section
followed by another lined section. Practices such as
homophonic translation, word repetition, pattern
mirroring, association, and just plain free form occur
throughout the piece. Daily experience emerges vividly
throughout the piece.

I found myself looking
forward to what would emerge. There were conversational
elements, as well as discoveries, occurring. The poem was
and is an entity unto itself. There are very lyrical
passages. There are passages that question, reminisce,
declare, even. I like hearing from Charles in this way. I
might mention that he is a gifted listener. He hears
underneath and beyond apparent text. I found this not
only interesting, but very pleasurable and rewarding.

We would sometimes go in
bursts, such that sections were being born and bringing
on other sections. Then there would be rests, occasioned
by any number of factors in our lives, combined with the
need for quiet. A collaboration is so much like a musical
composition in that way, except that the music comes
after the writing, rather than before.